A Moonbeam or a Disgrace?

California governor Jerry Brown has been dubbed “Governor Moonbeam” ever since Chicago columnist Mike Royko wrote in 1976 that Brown would get “the moonbeam vote.” According to the Los Angeles Times, “Royko was suggesting that Brown was attracting California's New Age crowd” as his political supporters. Even though Royko eventually retracted the moniker he had assigned to Brown, the name stuck.

But, based on events of the past couple weeks, I think that “Governor Disgrace” is much more appropriate, for he has recently turned the screws on truth and respect for human dignity. Within a span of five days, the governor signed three bills that can lead only God knows how many preborn children and ailing patients to their death.

On October 5, the governor signed into law the End of Life Option Act “to allow doctors to prescribe lethal doses of drugs to terminally ill patients.”

Analyzing this faulty legislative coup by the right-to-die crowd, Archbishop Jose Gomez said, “The compassion that doctor-assisted suicide offers is hollow. And this legislation has dangerous implications for our state, especially for the poor and vulnerable. . . . There is no denying that in California and nationwide we face a public health crisis in the way we treat patients who are terminally ill and at the end of life. But the answer to fear and a broken system is to fix the system and address the fears. It is not to kill the one who is afraid and suffering.”

Indeed, Your Excellency.

Yet we see that Brown was not quite finished insulting human dignity, for just four days later he acted to both deny freedom of speech to pro-life pregnancy agencies and deny women who suffer complications from abortion the right to be rushed to a local hospital for care.

On October 9, the governor signed into law the Reproductive Fact Act “requiring crisis pregnancy centers . . . to provide information about reproductive services available elsewhere, including abortion.” One news outlet reported that Reproductive Fact Act supporters “say the California measure was specifically crafted to address concerns raised by courts elsewhere, which have blocked some local attempts to require centers to disclose information about whether they provide referrals for abortion, emergency contraception or prenatal care.”

While the statement is patently false, the truth has never gotten in the way of a pro-abortion legislative proposal before, so why should it now? Rebecca Hamilton understood this when she wrote, “Crisis pregnancy centers have been under attack from those who want to destroy Christian voices in the public sphere for quite a while now. . . . I would think that of all the voices the darkness wants to silence, crisis pregnancy centers would head the list.”

Why? Because out of loving self-sacrifice for the expectant mother facing a pregnancy and afraid, these pro-life centers weave a safety net that cares for mother and child before and after birth. That alone is threat enough for the death merchants.

And finally, on October 9, Brown also signed into law a bill, AB 1177, authored by “Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez, D-Los Angeles, requiring health clinics that provide abortions or birthing services to apply for waivers from mandatory hospital transfer agreements. Gomez says such clinics are the only ones not allowed to obtain waivers, restricting access for women who live in areas without hospitals. That bill was sponsored by Planned Parenthood.” In essence, the Gomez bill repeals the requirement that primary care clinics must have a transfer agreement with a nearby hospital. Apparently in the minds of a majority of California lawmakers and the Jesuit-trained governor, abortion mills are a special class of locations where, even though babies die and women can be maimed for life, no hospital need be nearby should an emergency occur. We already know, based on the medical emergency reports that Operation Rescue and others disclose, that these crises among women who do abort their children grow daily.

Sadly, the value and dignity of the human being is rapidly declining everywhere. The Lord’s precious gift of life has become as negotiable as the minimum wage.

Thus, I dub “Governor Moonbeam” a disgrace.

I ask you all to do three things. First, pray for wisdom—for yourselves and for leaders within our country. Second, learn the facts about euthanasia so that you can defend yourself and your loved ones. And third, request a copy of American Life League's Loving Will—a truly pro-life advance directive. The culture of death has crept silently upon us, and now laughs in our faces as it envelops our children and families. It is silent no more. Nor should we be.